THE Islamophobia it's the preconception, systemic or punctual, as well as the aversion, intolerance and discrimination of Islamic people as a result of their religion and the ethnic origin linked to it. Islamophobia has been evident in recent years with the refugee crisis, as many Muslims, mainly from Syria, sought refuge in European and American countries.
This fact awoke Islamophobia in people and movements with conservative and nationalist biases, which make use of terrorist acts committed by minority groups who do not represent Islam to arouse fear, distrust and hatred against immigrants of Muslim origin.
Read too: Religious intolerance - type of discrimination motivated by prejudice to certain religions
Summary on Islamophobia
Islamophobia is a form of ethnic and religious prejudice against Muslims.
It was intensified by the rise of far-right nationalist movements.
The emergence of fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups makes the fight against Islamophobia difficult.
Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups do not represent Islam.
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What is Islam?
O Islam is a monotheistic religion based on God's messages to Pmohammed. In Islamic tradition, Muhammad was the one who directly received the message of Allah (God) and, therefore, he is a prophet who stands out from others. For Muslims, Allah is the creator of everything, omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect, that is, Islam sees the image of God in a very similar way to the christianity.
Islam appeared in the seventh century d. Ç., therefore, is more recent than Christianity. In Islamic tradition, Jesus is not the messiah. He was a prophet, just like Muhammad, Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. The holy book of Islam is the Koran or Koran. Anyone who practices Islam is called an Islamist, a Muslim, or a Mohammedan.
What is Islamophobia?
Islamophobia is a neologism coined to describe the situation of prejudice experienced by people of Islamic origin in the world, especially in the West. The need to create this word to represent a religious prejudice was because the Islamophobic sentiment has skyrocketed around the world, gaining proportions that deserve further study. detailed.
Islamophobia is a form of religious prejudice, as it is practiced by account of religion, but it is also a prejudice of origin, as we directly associate Islamic people with their original location, that is, countries of the Middle East. Due to the vertiginous and systemic growth of prejudice against these groups, it became increasingly The need to retake a word that appeared in the 1970s in France is evident: the Islamophobia. However, the use of this term is more linked to western media usage. There are even critical positions of Islamic leaders, intellectuals and authorities that place Islamophobia more as racism or xenophobia than as religious prejudice.
Starting from September 11 attacks of 2001, committed by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, the then president of the United States, George W. Bush declared war against the terrorism. At the time, a confused feeling took hold of many people who did not understand that al-Qaeda as well as the Islamic State at other times (as well as any other terrorist group) does not represent the people Muslim.
This confused feeling, with the exploitation of terrorist actions by the press, generated in good portion of the average western population a feeling of association of Muslim people to groups terrorists. This feeling was intensified recently due to the attack on French humor newspaper Charlie Hebdo, also practiced by al-Qaeda, and for the growth and notoriety of the Islamic State in the context of Syria civil war.
It is known that the Islamic State acts in a fragmented way, recruiting young people from all continents through the internet, and a kind of widespread fear of the actions of the Islamic State generates even more prejudice by supporting a distrust of Muslims.
Terrorist groups do not represent Islamic peoples. When referring to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic state, in addition to ultra-radical Muslim movements such as the Taliban movement (which started as a militia and ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001), we are talking about a radical fundamentalist minority. Fundamentalist thinking is that ultra-conservative and rigid thinking, which defends blind obedience to a set of social, religious and moral norms.
These groups try to establish their power and install a dictatorial religious state to control the population. Many use a theoretical maneuver for a biased interpretation of the Koran (the religious book of Islam) in order to to enlist and convince men to commit terrorist acts, many of them suicidal, in the name of the cause defended by the group. The existence of such groups cannot be attributed to the simple fact of the existence of religion or the sacred book, since the fundamentalist interpretation is quite distorted.
Read too: Ethnocentrism - point of view based on a certain ethnicity subjugating the others
What is xenophobia?
THE xenophobia is a kind of preconception that arisesbased on origin of a person. It happens when a group of people manifests prejudice, persecution, aversion, discrimination and even aggression against people or groups of people who have immigrated. THE immigration it is the only way that many people find to escape adverse living conditions, such as hunger, drought, lack of jobs, wars and persecution. The person who immigrates, in general, does so out of necessity.
When an immigrant leaves his country and does not see a condition of return, he can ask for asylum or refuge in another country. If granted, he enters the situation of refugee and receives a visa to stay in the country where he/she stayed. This situation is seen as a reason for prejudiced people to practice xenophobia, which can often be linked to Islamophobia. Follow the discussion of this topic also on our podcast: Xenophobia in Brazil and worldwide.
Video lesson on xenophobia
Islamophobia in France
THE France is one of democracies oldest and most consolidated in the contemporary world and firmly anchored by republican values such as freedom and equality. However, the French case is extremely complicated when it comes to Islamophobia. This because the european country is the country with the highest number of muslims, adding up to around six million practitioners of the religion of Muhammad there.
There are Muslims from French colonies who immigrated in search of decent living conditions, many fleeing from armed conflicts in their countries of origin, and the children of these immigrants were born in France, therefore, they are French citizens Muslims.
Despite the numbers, Islamophobia is becoming more and more present in French everyday life, coming to appear in public policies and government actions with an islamophobic bias. In the beginning, Islamophobia was mostly practiced in France by people linked to ultra-nationalist far-right groups.
A satirical humor newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, was known for making jokes about morals, customs and religion. They spared nothing, not even Islam. In fact, it was the cartoons satirizing Islam that caused the wrath of radical Muslims and the revolt of Islamists around the world. Several times, the newspaper itself was accused of promoting Islamophobia for playing with topics so sensitive and sacred to Islam.
On January 7, 2015, members of an al-Qaeda faction in France stormed the newspaper's Paris office. armed with rifles. They shot journalists. The attack resulted in 12 dead and five injured. From then on, discussions about freedom of expression were heated, as was Islamophobia in France. Thus, the fear and distrust of Muslim people were fueled by people with radical political positions, giving rise to the practice of Islamophobia.
The persecution began to become more systemic, being present even in actions of the government of President Emanuel Macron, such as the ban on wearing the hijab, the mandatory veil for women, in public schools.
Image credit
[1] Koca Vehbi / Shutterstock
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
